Keep on keepin' on

Happily graduating from less to more has recurred throughout my recovery. Yesterday's graduation to WBaT feels like the most momentous of its kind so far. While exploring "as tolerated" (turns out, I can tolerate a great deal), I'm looking back and whistling at
how far I've travelled.

Crutching along within the System of Health, I noticed differing attitudes and treatment options available from different folks. All of the people, without exception, who have worked with me have been excellent and have helped me in different ways great and small. I think one key difference is working with doctors and experts who are athletes. For example, I had a fantastic PT who was very tough and helped me a great deal. However, she treated (medically) me like an 86 year old sedentary person. That is, for example, she expected me to be frail and have balance issues. The reason why she treated me this way, I am certain, is that *all* of her patients to date had been 86 year old sedentary people. The broken hip seems to cruelly target these folks. I was an outlier, for sure, and did not fit the seemingly dominant treatment approach. As we worked together over time, she adapted to what I was telling her and it worked out. By contrast my surgeon and his assistant are both athletes themselves. This last fact is why, when my surgeon gave me the stern (some would say "tough love") "no go" on weight bearing at the earlier visit, I was disappointed but I eventually accepted it. At the time, Dave Gray said to me: "Doctors don't want you messing up their carpentry, so that isn't surprising."

A lesson for me maybe then, is that when you are whacking through some kind of expert-mediated jungle undergrowth (healthcare at least), your machete is comm-un-i-ca-tion. Talk to the doc and the other experts about your self, your goals, and so on. At times, you might even have to insist that you are not frail! Years ago, I remember a seemingly passive attitude on the part of my father during a long and varied trip though the healthcare system. The system seems to encourage this passivity in subtle ways; maybe the doctor/expert does know best. Sometimes you know best too.

A recent NYT piece finds athletes seeking out doctors who themselves are athletes: But First, Doctor, What Was Your Marathon Time?